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NUTS.

NUTS, or Naths, called in Western India Nutwa, correspond to the European gipsy tribes, and, like them, have no settled home. They are arrant thieves, and their principal occupations are conjuring, dancing, and tricks of legerdemain. The men are very active and clever as acrobats. The women attend their performances, and sing and play on small native drums or tamborines. They also affect knowledge of the science of palmistry, and prepare and sell love philtres and other charms. The Naths do not mix with or intermarry with other tribes. They live for the most part in tents made of black blanket stuff, and move from village to village through all parts of the country. Some of the men are skilful blacksmiths, and the women make patchwork quilts, frequently very ingenious in pattern and neatly sewn. Some of the boldest dacoits in India have been found among the Naths, and there are families among them which have practised dacoity and gang robbery for generations, while their constant movements and unsettled habits have made them difficult to trace. It is difficult to say whether Naths are Hindoos or Mahomedans, as they have indifferently Hindoo and Mahomedan names, and practise the observances of both religions, intermixed with strange ceremonies of their own at marriages and other festivals, which are kept secret among them. They are a very marked race, and are generally distrusted wherever they go. Their ornaments of silver are peculiar, and their whole appearance picturesque. Gwal Nut - 110 - the gipsy woman represented, is five feet three and a half inches in height; her age, thirty-one years; colour of her eyes dark brown; clothes bright red; ornaments solid silver.